Quotes by Sheri S. Tepper

Though this new forest grew mightily, elsewhere the mighty jungles fell. Elsewhere the coastal rain forests that furred the body of the world were torn and riven. Elsewhere the last of the old growth the last of the world’s own garment were ripped away. It was in this time, now, that the mother of us all was stripped naked and left to die in shame of her children, she who had been robed in glory like this, adorned like this. I bent my head upon the roots and wept, sorrowing for the trees.

Our lives are made up of many things, not just one. Many answers, not just one. Its men that want one answer for everything. Theyre always making laws, as though they could make one law that would be just in all cases. They cant. They never have. I think men get derailed, sometime during their growing up. Instead of settling for whats honest and real and sort of thoughtful, they go off on these quests. They go strutting and crowing, waving their weapons and shouting their battle cries. They say theyre seeking something higher, but it always seems to end in pain, doesnt it?

All around the Mediterranean youll find cultures that believe men cant control themselves and shouldnt have to try.

“I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, The Gods say... They will believe if one says, I had a Vision... They will believe if one says, It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold... But, if one says, History teaches, then they will not believe.”

“He told us that nations of men fell into disorder, so nations of law were set up instead. He told us that nations of law then forgot justice and let the law become a Game, a Game in which the moves and the winning were more important than truth. He told us to seek justice rather than the Game.”

“They will set aside what they have believed about the world, divesting themselves of all preconceptions, all judgments.... They will do it, then they will send their minds out to seek the truth. ”

“No sentimentality, no romance, no false hope, no self-petting lies, merely that which is!”

“Were so old that the winds of age echo along our ribs and pick at our eye sockets. We could be gone tomorrow. A chill, say, or a little slip on the cliff side. I feel as fragile as a dried flower. I rattle a little in the moving air, but Im only coherent dust-a shape of what once was. My essence is going.”

“Boys play with death as though it were a game, cutting their teeth on daggers.”